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Turtle Soup

A soup made with turtle meat, veal, ham, herbs, carrots, onions, and spices, simmered until rich.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. The day before, chop the herbs and prepare the forcemeat.

  2. Suspend the turtle by its hind fins and neck with a weight to drain the blood overnight.

  3. In the morning, lay the turtle on its back and cut around the under shell to separate it from the upper shell.

  4. Carefully remove the gut without breaking the gall and set aside the hearts in a bowl of water.

  5. Cut the meat from the callipee into four quarters and place on a clean dish.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, chop the veal and add it along with the turtle meat, herbs, carrots, onions, ham, peppercorns, salt, spices, and bay leaves.

  2. Stew until it takes on the color of espagnole sauce.

  3. Add the fins and hearts half an hour before serving, along with half water and half beef stock.

  4. Skim the soup carefully and add a bunch of parsley before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Forms the main body of the soup and gives its characteristic rich, gelatinous meat.
Veal
Adds body and gelatin to the stock as it stews for a long time.
Lean ham
Contributes savory, salty depth to the stewed broth.
Beef stock
Adds liquid and savory flavor to the soup along with the water.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stewing base.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the stewing base.

The step that matters

Stew until it takes on the color of espagnole sauce. Slow stewing lets collagen from the veal and turtle break down into gelatin and deepens the color and flavor through gentle browning. Stopping too early leaves a thin, pale soup.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, beef):

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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